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It is in view, probably, of this difficulty that Plato, in
the Philebus, makes pleasure an element in the Term; the good is
not defined as a simplex or set in Intellectual-Principle alone;
while he rightly refrains from identifying the good with the
pleasant, yet he does not allow Intellectual-Principle, foreign
to pleasure, to be The Good, since he sees no attractive power in
it. He may also have had in mind that the good, to answer to its
name, must be a thing of delight and that an object of pursuit
must at least hold some pleasure for those that acquire and
possess it, so that where there is no joy the good too is absent,
further that pleasure, implying pursuit, cannot pertain to the
First and that therefore good cannot.
All this was very well; there the enquiry was not as to the
Primal Good but as to ours; the good dealt with in that passage
pertains to very different beings and therefore is a different
good; it is a good falling short of that higher; it is a mingled
thing; we are to understand that good does not hold place in the
One and Alone whose being is too great and different for that.
The good must, no doubt, be a thing pursued, not, however, good
because it is pursued but pursued because it is good.
The solution, it would seem, lies in priority:
To the lowest of things the good is its immediate higher; each
step represents the good to what stands lower so long as the
movement does not tend awry but advances continuously towards the
superior: thus there is a halt at the Ultimate, beyond which no
ascent is possible: that is the First Good, the authentic, the
supremely sovereign, the source of good to the rest of things.
Matter would have Forming-Idea for its good, since, were it
conscious, it would welcome that; body would look to soul,
without which it could not be or endure; soul must look to
virtue; still higher stands Intellectual-Principle; above that
again is the principle we call the Primal. Each of these
progressive priors must have act upon those minors to which they
are, respectively, the good: some will confer order and place,
others life, others wisdom and the good life:
Intellectual-Principle will draw upon the Authentic Good which we
hold to be coterminous with it, both as being an Activity put
forth from it and as even now taking light from it. This good we
will define later.
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